The Arab-Israeli crisis - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

The Arab-Israeli crisis. Flag of the Arab league. Flag of Israel. 1967- 1973 War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War. The Khartoum Resolution1967. The Arab leaders of the Arab league met in this city to discuss what to do next with Israel. They had been badly beaten in the Six Day War.

Copyright Complaint Adult Content Flag as Inappropriate

I am the owner, or an agent authorized to act on behalf of the owner, of the copyrighted work described.

Download Presentation

PowerPoint Slideshow about 'The Arab-Israeli crisis' - johana

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation

Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author.While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server.

The USSR sent military assistance and about 10,000 advisors to help Egypt recover its military abilities.

The USSR also saw an opportunity to test out new weapons and radar systems, as well as train personnel in combat situations. The Soviet arms industry had also taken a knock in the Six Day War and saw a chance at research and development.

The Egyptians built up large amounts of anti-aircraft weaponry to try to neutralise the effect of the superior Israeli air force. They bought in particular the new, and deadly, SAM (Surface to Air) missile systems from the USSR.

The Israeli’s found a solution to the Egyptian ‘defence in depth’ : they launched daring helicopter raids deep into Egyptian territory.

These spread alarm and confusion. One raid cut off all electricity to the whole country at one point. Another captured, intact, the latest design Soviet missile defence radar and took it back to Israel!

Israel, also, was being largely supported by the USA to counter the USSR’s support of Egypt. (France, a large supplier to Israel, had put an arms embargo on the Middle East).

US weaponry was superior to USSR weaponry and new jets- such as the A4 Skyhawk, and the F4 ‘Phantom’ were excellent machines. The Phantom was to dominate the skies for the Israeli air force.

‘Asymmetric response’ was the name given to the overwhelming Israeli retaliation for even the slightest sign of Egyptian aggression. Huge reprisals, bombing, shelling, etc were acceptable for the tiniest reason. Israel argued that because her military was outnumbered, they had to make up for this disadvantage with greater aggression.

As a result Egypt lost more men and materiel than Israel in the war.

Because the land was largely desert however few civilians were involved.

However, Egypt was a bigger country, and could arguably afford to lose more men and machines than Israel could.

The UN resolution 242 was clearly not operative in such a situation, and the USA sent Secretary of State Rogers to broker a new deal.

The Rogers Plan: Aug 1970 Israel, Egypt and Jordan would have a ceasefire if missile deployment was restricted and certain lands exchanged. They all signed. The Plan (like 242) did not credit the Palestinians with any right to their land- now taken as Israel. Consequently Palestinians began criticism of Nasser and Hussein.

The Rogers Plan was immediately broken, however, by the Egyptians who sited new missiles close to the Canal Zone.

King Hussein of Jordan, by signing the plan, caused the PLO in Jordan to come out fiercely against him. He had broken the Khartoum Resolution. Arab was now set against Arab in Jordan.

His pan-Arab and anti-colonial ideas gave many Arab people a sense of identity.

Many of his reforms enhanced Egypt eg the Aswan dam.

His involvement in war caused many problems too, however, besides damage and casualties. Not least was the heavy involvement of the USSR in Egypt- which many independent minded Arabs just saw as a new form of imperialism.

Such was Nasser’s popularity- despite the lost wars- that huge crowds attended his burial. Estimated at 5 million people- it was one of the largest funerals in history. News casters cried openly on television, and women wept in the streets.

The crowds in fact hijacked his funeral and people insisted on carrying the coffin themselves.

This shows his true legacy- the restoration of Arab pride in themselves.

Nasser’s successor, Anwar Sadat, considered the war of attrition to be a waste of time. Israel was showing no sign of running out of resources.

Sadat considered diplomacy to be a cheaper option in the short term. In the longer term, however, he was considering whether inflicting a sharp, limited defeat on Israel would be more effective in forcing concessions from her.

Intifada:انتفاضة Arabic word stands for shaking off or shivering because of fear or illness. It also means abrupt and sudden waking up from sleep or unconcerned status. Politically; The word came to symbolise the Palestinian uprising against the Israeli occupation. The word also stands for the weakness of the Palestinian people and their suffering under the Israeli occupation.

In Jordan, and particularly the West bank, Palestinian Arabs had been preparing for war. They were organised into many different groups but they were all largely prepared to operate under the umbrella name ‘PLO’.

When King Hussein of Jordan signed the Rogers plan, the Palestinians felt betrayed. When Hussein’s army began receiving arms and equipment from the USA they felt even more threatened.

Different PLO groups began new campaigns of violence. They worked out of fortified refugee camps and cities. They raided Israeli targets , but also Jordanian police and army targets.

King Hussein, for his part, felt threatened by the Palestinians. As refugees in his country they insisted in behaving independently- and had grown in such numbers as to take over several cities. They now comprised 50% of his population. They were confident enough to fight off Jordanian army units who sought to impose Jordanian laws. He saw US help as a solution to this problem.

The Jordanian army shelled several suspected bases- where Palestinian activists were thought to be hiding- and he ordered that all weapons be handed in.

In Syria some army units called ‘The Palestinian Liberation Army’(PLA) had been equipping.

The US, meanwhile, promised aid to King Hussein of Jordan, and even Israel flew threatening missions over Syria to stop her supporting the PLO with the PLA.

The death of Gamal Nasser (September 1968) took real authority away from the Palestinians. Without his support they had to stop the conflict.

Yasser Arafat , leader of the PLO, immediately began looking for new sponsors for the Palestinian cause. The Palestinians called this time ‘Black September’ because their cause, for a while, looked lost.

The Yom Kippur War, or October War also known as the 1973 Arab-Israeli War and the Fourth Arab-Israeli War, was fought from October 6 to October 26, 1973, between Israel and a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria.

Soviet objections to his plans resulted in Sadat throwing out all the 20,000 Soviet ‘advisors’ left over from the war of attrition. Egypt would never return to the Soviet side again. The Russians would now look for other friends in the Arab world.

Once again the Superpowers could not stand back and watch in neutrality. They had supplied intelligence and weaponry to both sides, and now it was being tested. Their status was therefore being challenged..

The USA had already been flying in large amounts of guns, tanks and spare parts to Israel.

The Soviets union had been supplying Egypt and Syria with just as much. However it was becoming obvious that Egypt was losing. The Soviet planes suddenly stopped arriving in Cairo.

This cause panic in the US. Were the planes being reequipped to carry front-line Russian soldiers?

Would the US need to send soldiers to Israel. Was this the start of World War 3?

Neither superpower wanted war therefore they co- operated in the United Nations.

The United Nations organised a ceasefire. Resolution 338.

No Russian soldiers ever arrived in Egypt.

This was to the Arabs’ advantage because Israeli forces were close to both Egypt’s and Syria’s capital cities, they had one entire Egyptian army cut off in the Sinai desert, and had, by now, occupied large pieces of Arab territory.

The UN sent in peace keepers to the Suez region, and the Golan heights. All forces began to withdraw.